DSW meets Q2 profit, misses sales

Columbus, Ohio – DSW Inc. met Wall Street expectations for profit but did not grow revenues as much as projected during a mixed second quarter of fiscal 2015.



Costs and expenses increased at a slower rate than sales, allowing net income to improve 9% to $37.61 million, from $34.33 million in the prior year period. Net sales increased 7% to $627.2 million, from $587.1 million. Same-store sales rose 1.8%.



Mike MacDonald, president and CEO, also attributed rising profits to merchandise selling strategy.



"Our double digit earnings growth over the prior period reflected a significant shift in favor of regular priced merchandise selling,” said MacDonald. “This shift enabled us to achieve meaningful merchandise margin rate expansion and gross profit dollar growth. We also advanced our strategy of becoming a more customer-centric company by evolving our organization, systems, and processes to meet our customers' changing expectations. As a result of this financial and strategic process, we remain confident in our direction."